Who determines what is "ugly"

1. The world is indeed going through it. Do what you can. Even if it’s small. But also, take breaks, think about other things. As my colleague Alan Henry says so eloquently: Thrive out of spite.

2. This newsletter is early! WHY?! Because I’m here to tell you that I’m performing at Nerd Nite! Tonight! Come hear me talk about pigeons it’s going to be great. 

Do you think wind turbines are ugly?

It’s a complaint I see a lot, we don’t want wind turbines. They ruin the view, they’re so ugly. More rarely, I see complaints that wind turbines harm birds and habitat (indeed, they can, and there are solutions to this with siting, etc).

But the biggest complaint is just that they’re ugly. Wind energy is clean. It’s renewable. It’s far, far better than coal or gas. Of the options we have, it is one of the better ones.

Yet people have decided wind turbines are ugly. This could be because the people faced with wind turbines are often those who have lived without the consequences of other power plants. Their houses face the ocean, not the coal plant. They get the power, not the view of the dam.

The people who disdain the wind turbines are also people in power, and so their opinion comes to dominate. At first, people scoffed, but then I watched as the offhand remarks seeped through society anyway. Oh, we could do wind. But it’s so ugly, you know?

And I wonder we we decided that. Why we decided something different and new was ugly. Because of course, “beautiful” or “ugly” is entirely subjective, and often about the history that we tell each other.

Case in point:

These are old fashioned windmills (though they are, in fact, new, and in South Korea). Aren’t they lovely?

Loads of people love an old-fashioned windmill. We picture them, as above, in vaguely golden tones. They are a sign of the old world. Of bucolic, pastoral peace.

But if you go back several hundred years? That’s not what windmills were. Windmills produced power. They were wind-powered MILLS. They ground grain, mostly. When you see a sweet old fashioned windmill what you are looking at is a tiny ancient factory.

To us, that old factory is pretty. It’s bucolic. We are used to seeing them, these old windmills. They look in place on the landscape…because we cannot recall a landscape otherwise. They are pretty in part because they are old. They are pretty in part because they are (mostly) no longer useful. They are pretty because we have put them into the art and landscapes of our minds. We have decided that they belong.

So what is the difference between that, and this?

These windmills are producing power. They are small scale factories in much the same way.

The only difference is that we have decided they don’t belong.

And I wonder what would happen if we decided they did? Van Gogh painted windmills and we call it art. 200 years from now, will people think the same of these? Will they go to museums and look at paintings of wind turbines, and talk about how bucolic they are, how they remind them of a simpler time?

I find myself thinking of this because I watch a lot of K-Dramas (look we all need to cope ok), and when the characters go to the country…often they are riding horses past wind turbines! They are in beautiful green fields…under wind turbines. It doesn’t feel out of place at all. It’s just…the way things are.

How long will it take for modern ugliness to become pretty nostalgia? How much of our resistance to cleaner energy, or the plants we allow near us, or the animals, or a specific style of housing, is because our gut reaction to “new” is “no”?

Thanks for reading Team Trash: Where People and Wildlife Meet! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Where have you been?

• Is it reading about the 500lb bear who survived the wildfires in Altadena under a house? I liked this coverage because it brought up a bunch of stuff that other people did not. First: The bear had BEEN there, it was hibernating. It simply didn’t leave. And it was hibernating there, in danger…because people in the area had been feeding it.

• Perhaps it’s about how mantis shrimp manage to pack such a powerful punch without like, breaking their lil’ fists? I wonder if scientists will be looking to put some of this technology into armor.

• Very proud of these science writing organizations who have issued a public letter asking for the restoration of critically important public data sets. These are datasets the taxpayers have paid for! Things we need to inform the public and keep people safe.

Where have I been?

First this newsletter is coming out early! Because TONIGHT I’m performing at Nerd Night in DEFENSE OF THE PIGEON.

I also wrote a piece (and did the experiment!) on the best way to cook an egg, according to science. You will need 32 minutes, but I will say the result is…eggcellent.

I’m pleased to be tapped by Freakonomics to talk about RATS! Why everyone hates them and what that really says about us.